Haim (or Edmond David) apparently wishes we'd give Michelle Rhee a pass for her alleged crimes, since they pale by comparison with the enormous, but unspecified crimes of the vast but unnamed "Education Mafia." That's an interesting take on how to deal with crime and corruption: faced with a particular instance of it, talk about all the generalities, but never advocate pursuing the apparent crimes right in front of your face.

Furthermore, claim that those who do want those crimes pursued really don't care about all the other crimes. Well, show me some evidence supporting specific crimes attributable to specific people and then we can talk. If I show no interest in seeing such cases pursued despite agreeing that crimes seem to have been committed by the people so charged, then you have grounds to insult my integrity. Until then, you do not, and are in fact guilty of, if nothing else, extreme rudeness. But I believe it goes considerably beyond that. Your comments about people with the ability to read at the 7th grade level are a classic example of how you have always operated here: rather than just come flat out and say what you mean (and risk being censored), you go the indirect route. Very classy indeed. Very honest. Just like posting everything under a pseudonym.

The fact remains that YOU personally have never lifted a finger to improve the lot of anyone other than those of yourself and yours, unless there's some anonymous Haim Pipik/Edmond David charitable foundation at work you've managed to keep from us all these years, or a track record of good works, perhaps volunteering as a literacy and/or math tutor for one or two of the mis-educated children that can readily be found in Brooklyn and environs. . . No? I didn't think so. Nor did anyone else.

Yet you know all there is to know about education, about teaching, about everyone else's work and ideas. Truly stunning. Not even Wayne Bishop is sufficiently perceptive about these matters for your taste, and periodically you are obliged to set him, too, on the proper road to correct thinking. I guess THAT is your charitable work.

Sorry that while I'm critical of a lot of aspects of public education, I don't share your solutions. And the fact that I don't want to "torch" the schools of education along side you, or to blow them up with Wayne or anyone else, doesn't delegitimatize my commitment and efforts to improving matters. If you think acts of terrorism will be effective, that's your prerogative. Of course, should you act upon those thoughts or incite others to do so, you may find law enforcement and court officials less than amused by or tolerant of such things. I, for one, am not a fan of such extremism or violence.

The fact that I wouldn't be caught dead working with you is a value judgment of which I'm quite proud. There are some pretty sorry excuses for human beings currently expressing agreement with my overall opinion of the Common Core State Standards, but I won't be joining forces with them. I still have to be able to eat, and I like to be able to sleep at night without having to shower in an industrial cleanser first.

In any rate, the bottom line is this: you have no interest in Michelle Rhee's crimes because you view her as part of the solution. That she is anti-union is not something I made up, and the fact you would claim so is quintessentially Haim. At the very least, my viewpoint echoes that of quite a few other people, so I guess we ALL made it up. Mass hallucination or something like that, I'm sure.

What your interest appears to be, based on 10+ years of your posting on this list, is pretty much what GS says it is: spouting an endless stream of nasty accusations against unspecified members of an amorphous group you name "the Education Mafia." Who is in and who is not is determined strictly by you. Lots of luck convincing reasonable people to accept that as grounds for anything whatsoever other than, perhaps, laughter or indifference. As for action, none is or ever will be forthcoming from you. Not the creation of a better model of anything. Not the implementation of a model of which you approve. Those things take time, talent, money, commitment, and other things you either lack or do not wish to part with.

Of course it's your prerogative to be an armchair critic, even a particularly nasty one. But as a result, you have no capital to use against people who do more than sit on math-teach writing sarcastic screeds (and who apparently have no vision - with or without the sarcastic "thing" attached - upon which to act). You can be as nasty as the moderator chooses to let you be here, and on your own time, in your own chosen venues, you can be much nastier (of that I have no doubt). But seriously: to what end? Who actually benefits from a word you write, an idea you espouse, a cutting comment you dredge up and expel? Particularly when the venue is so minuscule. And you can rationalize your willingness to let Rhee walk because to pursue her wrongdoing would fail to address the vast criminal conspiracy. I guess that's why Elliott Ness didn't go after Al Capone: because there were so many other gangsters in the 1920s that it just wasn't worth bring any one of them to justice.